News

Nintendo to start anime production?

The Nikkei reported that former Nintendo president (and current advisor) Hiroshi Yamauchi intends to present a plan at an October board meeting for the company to begin producing anime.

According to the article, Nintendo seeks to raise their earnings by linking their popular characters into anime. It is likely that they are searching for ways to expand revenue sources outside of the gaming industry in order to better compete with more general electronics companies like Sony and Microsoft. The company already has anime of games such as Kirby, F-Zero and Pokemon, and although the particulars have yet to be presented and approved, Nintendo would plan to create the new anime and movies in-house.

Nintendo would not only be considering translating their franchises to movies, but also plan to produce more games based on movie or anime characters. Earlier in the year, Nintendo made a move to purchase more stock of Bandai, of which they were already the ninth largest shareholder. As Bandai is a largely anime-related company, it can be safe to say that this direction has been anticipated by the rest of Nintendo.

In a related article at the Kyoto newspaper, Yamauchi mentioned that he would like to use Ogura Hyakunin Isshu (One Hundred Poems from One Hundred Poets, a very influential and well-known part of Japan's literary tradition) as material for anime as well. As Yamauchi is a member of the Kyoto Cultural Committee board of directors, this is also in accordance with their current project of reviving interest in the poems and poets. Should the project go through, Nintendo may also be interested in developing original anime. (Coincidentally, these famous Japanese poems are used in karuta, cards in a game played most typically at New Year's Eve. This evokes a rather auspicious sign of coming full circle, since before becoming what they are today, Nintendo primarily produced playing cards.)

Yamauchi also indicated that he would like to see this be a success both in and out of Japan. "It's something the management will decide, but we should be moving towards that field. Nintendo should take that risk."